Years ago in my office with photos of Dr King (“No man is free until all men are free”) and Mahatma Gandhi (“In a gentle way you can change the world”) were looking down as I worked. They accompanied me for 25 years. They still speak to me today.
As we enter the year 2023, let us seek new opportunities and possibilities for policing a free society…
Few poems i’ve Read written about the blue (those with whom i served) three decades it was i remain puzzled about your future your resistance (blindness?) to simply becoming better serving above self i write speak about how ways this can happen must happen (for trustworthiness is involved here) alas words fall on empty ears hardened hearts please once more listen to me you are lost on the wrong path you cannot do this alone i know the way there are others who do too find them listen act.
I served over 20 years as the chief of police in Madison (WI), four years as chief of the Burnsville (MN) Police Department, and before that as a police officer in Edina (MN) and the City of Minneapolis. I hold graduate degrees from the University of Minnesota and Edgewood College in Madison. I have written many articles over my years as a police leader calling for police improvement (for example, How To Rate Your Local Police, and with my wife, Sabine, Quality Policing: The Madison Experience). After retiring from the police department, I answered a call to ministry, attended seminary, and was ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church. At the present time, I serve a small church in North Lake (WI), east of Madison. Sabine and I have nine adult children, eleven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. She is also a retired police officer and we both continue active lives.
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Improving Police: A Necessary Conversation 